[texhax] Initial basic questions about TEX and LaTEX

[Julian R A Manning]

I downloaded an installed proTEXT on my pc.
I noticed that there is provision for something called pdfTEX.
I take it this is the old plain TEX to be found in books like "The TEXbook"
by Donald E Knuth.
I have only tried one of my old TEX document but found that proTEXT
processed it fine.
I did not notice this feature in earlier version of proTEXT.
Is good old plain TEX coming back into fashion?
Is there some manual on converting plain(pdf)TEX documents in LaTeX
documents that hightlights the differences between the two packages?
Is there some way to add line numbers to the tex files and the pdf output
both on a continuous and on a per page basis?
I need a leg up in stepping from TEX to LaTeX.
Yours sincerely, Julian Manning
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